Goals and Routines: What DIDN'T Work for Linette

Today is the last day of January and the final installment in the series on goals and routines. Thanks to each of the ladies for sharing.

When Linette announced in her Christmas letter that she was making the goal of cutting out all extras in 2020, I applauded her transparency and asked if she'd share about it on Home Joys.

I am a goal-oriented person. I love lists and crossing things off. Sometimes I add things to my lists that I’ve already done just for the thrill of making a line through it.

I am a visionary person. Life will never be long enough for me to meet all the goals that I want to achieve. There is always one more place I’d love to visit, one more book to read, one more craft or sewing project I’d like to finish, or one more new recipe to try.

I also have entrepreneur tendencies. My brain has dreamed up multiple projects. My love of learning has sent me spiraling in many diverse directions. I have tried to conjure the energy, time, and resources of any interested persons (and some not-so-interested, particularly children) to pull off many strategies and schemes.

But this year I am resolved to change my goals and routines. As much as I love gardening and flowers and baking and crafting and everything else in between, I am determined to scale way back on all those things that don’t have to be done. 

These changes are backed by a goal to focus on rest and relationships. What is the most important anyway?

I had a conversation with an older woman who spoke wisdom to my heart. At that moment, I was overwhelmed with the responsibilities that had been placed on my shoulders. She simply suggested that maybe God didn’t intend for me to do all the things that I thought needed done and that, most importantly, it was essential to recognize and prioritize the work that God had specifically given to me. Her words leaked into my heart in ways beyond the situation we were talking about and gave me courage to lay down the non-essentials…at least for a season of time.

Honesty has called me to realize that busyness has been a hindrance in my life. I have been so busy with trying to manage and achieve all my goals, projects, and activities that other areas of my life were suffering. I am hoping that with the cutting out of extra-curricular things I will have more time and energy for occasions like tea parties with my three-year-old, taking a walk out the back lane, or intentionally making memories with a friend.

Most of all, I regret the moments I’ve lost with God. My goal this year is to rest in the Lord and renew my relationship with Him and others. This may mean that I need to get to bed in good time so that I can get up to pray before my children awake. It might take the giving up of a project that I wanted to finish. It could be making time to do things that nurture and revive my soul. 

At times it is going to take a decisive choice. But at the end of my life I want to be able to say like Jesus in John 17:4. “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.”

- Linette Horst - Maryland

Goals and Routines: What Works for Flo

Flo shares a practical way that she balances all her mom tasks.

What I Can Do Well

If you are a mom with all young children, you know how overwhelming all the responsibilities resting on you can feel.

Chief cook and pastry chef

Nurse, pharmacist, and medical adviser

Flowerbed and garden planter, water and fertilizer supervisor

Birthday rememberer (my friends, and all the children’s friends)

Executive housekeeping officer

Mail and bookkeeping master

The above items list only physical obligations, not even touching the abstract responsibilities that come with the role of wife and mom: teacher, nurturer, friend, neighbor, and more. How can I meet the demands required for this life I’m blessed to live?

I run from defrosting the freezer—frost up to here!—to creating a bank deposit to emptying my son’s too-full clothes drawer, berating myself for not taking the outgrown clothes to the attic two months ago. Taking clothes to the attic makes me cross, because I see all the coats, clothes, and camping gear swirled together. Should I tackle the mess in the attic for a few minutes since I’m up here anyway? Or ignore the wreck and continue deep cleaning the boys’ room?

I hate working as hard as possible and still feeling perpetually behind. Attempting varied tasks in as many directions leaves me feeling scattered and exhausted, not to mention inefficient and unproductive.

I’m not a good mom when I feel too busy to enjoy the children. And this is the life I dreamed of: taking care of little people and raising them with the man I love. If I don’t enjoy the moment now, when will I? Certainly not when the children are grown and gone, no longer requesting to be read The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

And then I found this advice, words that gave me permission to say no to necessary work without guilt: Of all the work you are responsible for, do well at one thing today. 

One thing? One feels far easier than everything. One allows me to say no to many things and focus on what is most important today. This is how I have narrowed my everyday household responsibilities to 4 items:

1. Cooking and baking
2. General cleaning and laundry
3. Deep cleaning and organizing
4. Office work—anything at my desk

I can choose to work on one thing and not stress about the myriad other tasks waiting. When I return books to the bookshelves in the office and see the mail on my desk needing to be processed, I don’t need to drop everything and clean off my desk. Deskwork waits for Tuesday, which I try keep free of errands and appointments so I can give my full attention to mail and writing projects and books.

Deep cleaning is not assigned to a particular day of the week, but tackled on a specific day of my choice. When I am deep cleaning the living room, supper will likely be a simple chicken and rice casserole; it’s not the day for a four-course meal. Laundry and cleaning are most likely to get done Monday and Friday. Saturday I like to prepare food for Sunday, choosing kitchen work above any other responsibilities.

Two things I chose not to put on my responsibilities list are “wife” and “mom.” Regardless of what other responsibilities I fill, I want to give my husband and children priority every day—it’s the ultimate accomplishment if I may do it well.  

-Florence Fox - Michigan

Goals and Routines: What Works for Dorcas

Dorcas shares about her homeschooling routines.

I never thought I would homeschool, but along with our move to southern Chile, came the need for me to school our children who were then in kindergarten, second, and third grade. My personality tends to be a fly-by-the-seat-of-my pants, and yet, that does not produce an atmosphere to thrive.

I have tried schedules, but then feel like I fail them so soon. For me, schedules do not allow time for things that are most important in my life. Things like reading and pondering Scripture longer this morning than yesterday morning or a friend dropping by for coffee when math is scheduled.

I liked to make schedules that if I managed follow would give a temporary feeling of success. But, I didn’t know when I made the schedule if a child is going to be struggling or when something else would come up. When I failed the schedule, I would feel like I was failing homeschooling. I needed to learn, that in my life, timed schedules are great for a school, but they do not bring rest and the results I was wanting in our home.

When summer arrived, we were still not finished our school books. Thus began  year-round homeschooling, and I came up with rhythms instead of schedules. About every three to six months I have needed to change our rhythms, as seasons of life change, or we need a little change so our life is not just methodically ticking off math, history.

After reading Educating the Wholehearted Child by Clay and Sally Clarkson, I have worked very hard to shape the children’s attitudes about school books, writing, and reading to be as much a part of our daily living as breakfast and cooking and laundry. I want folding laundry neatly, cleaning the house well, and playing peaceably to be just as important as doing their best in math and spelling and language.

We are on our fourth year of homeschooling, and in this current season in life these are our rhythms. First things. (Make bed, get dressed, comb hair, feed the dog, brush teeth). Bible. (They are all going through the Bible. Our oldest daughter reads on her own. Our son listens to the audio Bible while following along in his Bible, and our nine-year-old daughter sits beside her brother and listens to the audio.) Then they read or play until breakfast. (This gives me time to keep reading my Bible, start a load of laundry, or mix up bread.)

After breakfast in which, after I have finished eating, I read something out of the Bible, a poem or two or five, we work on our current poem or Scripture we are memorizing and review several past ones, plus usually fit in something else we are working at learning. (That has been oceans and continents, reviewing parts of speech, skip counting, and currently teaching the children how to read music.)

Next is dishes. (For breakfast and supper dishes, I have a rotating schedule by weeks.) After dishes we spend about an hour and a half to two hours of study. Math always comes first.

Then they help with jobs and play until lunch time. After lunch is rest time for one or two hours. Most afternoons, we have a period where we do geography, history, or science, and they read the next chapter in the books they are reading aloud.

Throughout the times of work and play in the mornings and afternoons, I may work with one of the children individually on something they are struggling with in one of the subjects. 

If a friend stops for coffee, or we go to a friend’s house, the children know we take up with the next thing in our rhythm of First Things, Bible, Breakfast, Math, Lunch, Rest time, Afternoon study. If something comes up before we do Math and it is lunchtime, then Math comes between lunch and rest time. (When our children were younger, rest time would probably have needed to come before math.) Then we continue on through our rhythms of the day.

I try to keep the time after supper free from school work so we can spend time playing games as a family and just enjoying being with my husband.

By schooling year round, we are able to not do school books when traveling, sick, or on a day that a friend comes all day to learn to sew. Also there is no forgetting of math facts and fraction concepts in the summer months, and no dreading the getting back into school schedule. It allows for those harder when all we get done is math in the morning and read alouds with tea in the afternoon.

I have three mottos that I use to guide my days. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things will be added unto you.” “Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean, and the pleasant land.” (I repeat this one to myself on the days when I just want to go back to bed. Each little step we take does begin to add up to math facts remembered and concepts learned.) “Don’t count each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.”

Among the day after day of teaching and training and guiding, I have learned to truly love to homeschool our children. I have learned to be open to God’s leading in my days, to take the time to listen to and instruct a struggling child instead of just getting a math lesson checked off the day’s list.

Jesus promised that He came so we can have abundant life. Today I am so grateful that in those early days of homeschooling when I was struggling, I clung to that promise of abundant life, and refused to settle for mediocre. I want to run this race of life well, and so I have learned that I need to set rhythms for my life that will help us to become more excellent in every area, even though they may look different from my friends. I also know that our lives will keep changing, and our rhythms may need to change too, but I choose to believe that God will lead me as I seek to live my life for His glory and to be faithful even in the little things.

-  Dorcas Showalter - Chili

Goals and Routines: What Works for Timna

Timna shares about the shifts in her seasons of life.

At the start of each new year, I like to write a mission statement for myself in the front of my planner. Even though I don’t often read it, it clearly outlines my priorities and some of my goals. It defines my place and purpose before God, my role as a wife and a mom, my responsibility as a daughter to my aging parents, my place in the church and my duty as a homemaker.

I thrive on routines, but have not attained them. Most days we have ten people in our home, some who have their own schedules and my life flows around the people in my life.

In my earlier years of homemaking, I was influenced by the writings of home organizers such as Emilie Barnes, Donna Otto and Marla Cilley (FlyLady) and I am grateful for the things I learned from them. However, those women had different lifestyles and their methods did not totally work for me.

Our routines may reflect our values, but they do not define our priorities. We have to define our priorities and establish our routines based on that. It is easy to become overwhelmed when establishing priorities and routines. The discipline of a routine is good, and being consistent in one routine paves the way for the establishing new routines, but if they are too overwhelming, we tend to shy away from them.

My highest purpose is to bring glory to God, and in order to do that, I have to spend time in the Word and in prayer. Although I still need to grow in this, that routine is also a priority.

Right now, a daily shining of the bathroom and the kitchen sink is not my priority. I put higher priority on reading a story to a little seven-year-old who snuggles up beside me and lives a mixed up life between our house and his mom's house.

Making the bed in the morning gives me a sense of order and peace and is something my husband appreciates. I love to walk for my health but have gotten derailed because of cold weather. Cleaning my house gets moved up on the list of priorities if it shows too much negligence because God is a God of order and beauty, and I want our home to be a haven of rest and refreshment.

My routines shift through the various seasons of life. Probably some routines that get a lick and a promise now, will receive more attention once my house empties and my focus shifts. I often pray that God will give me wisdom to know the most important thing to do in every moment.

-Timna Hooley - Georgia

Goals and Routines: What Works for Kathryn

Kathyrn,a busy mom with young children, shares her current goals.

Prioritize quiet time with God by waking up before the children. I can listen to the Bible while I dress or get breakfast ready, but that should not replace prayer and studying paper pages of The Book of all books.

Love the children—enough to train them. Child training is more important than my housework. If I read or play with the children (ages 4, 2, and 7 months) before digging into work they can’t do, they require less discipline.

Do at least one project each day, in addition to child care and cooking. Laundry counts, oh yes, it does. A to-do list helps me remember the little things I need to do regularly, and checking off tasks is rewarding.

Divide deep-cleaning goals into increments. For example, our office and laundry room requires these tasks: dust or wash ceiling and walls; move and clean under the wash and dryer; ditto for two desks, a laundry cabinet, two file cabinets, a china hutch, and an armoire; wash doors and hardwood floor; wash curtain and window. I put each item on my to-do list on my phone. Tasks for each room recur as often as I think necessary—perhaps in two months or even years later.

Add “sew something” to my to-do list. While I work up to this goal, if you need to borrow an Activa 130 sewing machine, I know where one lurks. 

- Kathryn Swartz - Virginia

Goals and Routines: What Works for Sarah

Sarah shares what is working for her in a new season of life. 

This is a relevant subject to me. I’ve been thinking about it lately—our family is entering a new (and wonderful) stage. My “baby” is two years old, and my oldest daughter is becoming a responsible young lady. That means I have more freedom, besides someone who can go ahead with housework even when I’m doing something else. However, the two oldest do youth activities now, so my schedule sometimes needs to become one that accommodates theirs.

Along with a new stage comes a new kind of busyness, new joys, new challenges. I like to think I’m the kind of person whose motto is, “Wherever you are, be all there.” So I try to live in the moment, and I look forward to the unfolding of this new stage in much the same way as I looked forward to watching my firstborn’s developments as he grew. Life is an adventure. I can tell already that I will love this stage. I love the fact that the older children are becoming less like dependents and more like friends. I love not having a tiny baby and a huge diaper bag to haul around wherever I go.

Goals and routines have several specific names to me: personal relationship with God, building quality relationships with each individual personality among my children, and writing life. Hopefully, in that order.

My personal relationship with God, of course, is kept up by regular personal worship. Most of my mothering life, it has worked for me to have my devotions first thing in the morning, unless a baby was unusually uncooperative, in which case I tried to make sure it happened sometime during the  day. I love the verse that says God “will gently lead those that are with young.” He has given us these precious, unpredictable, demanding, marvelous souls, and He understands the demands on a mother’s time. So I know He understood about the days when my personal devotions just didn’t happen. However, I also know that when I skip my devotions, it is I that suffers, not God. What I like about this stage is that I have more freedom and empty arms to keep a notebook with my Bible and copy the Bible as I read it. I have been doing this for several months now, and I love how it forces me to really think about what I’m reading.

As the children grow and change, so do their needs. Right now, my biggest concern is that I’m somehow missing it with connecting to the hearts of my “middle children.” Actually, that has been a niggling fear ever since I got to the stage where we had a “middle child.” The older children become people in their own right, secure in their place as “the oldest ones.” The little ones are dependent and cute, and obviously need Mom. The middle children—well, they’re a part of the family, but they get caught between criticism from the older ones and Mom assuming that they can pretty much take care of themselves. Do I see their needs? Are they important enough to me that I’m willing to be intentional about meeting them?

My writing life is a rather new development for me, and the one I’m still grappling with the most to fit it in in ways that are healthy. In the afternoons when the scholars are gone and the little ones are sleeping, I have a quiet hour or two that I try to use wisely. Sometimes I read, and sometimes I write. Last spring, when I had lots of sewing to do, yet badly wanted to keep my tryst with the computer, plus had a long list of books I wanted to read and too little time to read, besides wanting to shed a few extra pounds, I made it a point to do at least some of each every day. I have a planner, which I use much like a bullet journal, and for several weeks, I had a list—sew, read, write, exercise. I made a check beside each thing for every day when I made it happen, whether it was five minutes or ninety. 

When the children wake up, or arrive home from school, or come in from outside, I try to meet them with eye contact and actually hearing them when they talk. I try not to let computer time compromise our sacred tradition of reading aloud for awhile before they go to bed.

I pray about each of these things a lot. God cares about my relationship with Him, my connections with those closest to my heart, and my writing bringing Him glory without compromising what’s most important.

-Sarah J. Martin - Ontario

Q&A - Book Lists

For years I have recorded the books that I read. I love looking back over those lists. I just kept a  simple title-and-author list in my planner. Sometimes if a book was especially enjoyed I placed a star beside it. If I wanted to remember not to read it again, I might make a note of what I found offensive.

This list works, but I wish I kept a few more details. Which books did I read to my children? Which were audio books? Why did this book deserve a star?

I've considered using something like GoodReads to record my reading, but I hesitate to sign up for one more potential on-line time waster. I don't want to start a system that steals my reading time.

So here is my questions for you.

Do you record the books you read?

Do you use GoodReads, a bullet journal, or some other tool for your lists?

What information have you found helpful to note?

My" Books I Read" is only one list. I have others. "Books to Read."" Books to Look for at a Used Bookstore." "Books Set in the Middle Ages." "Favorite Picture Books." And many more. These lists can be found on documents in my computer, scrawled in notebooks, and scrunched on scraps of paper at the bottom of my purse.

I know. This is only a problem for a Book Geek.

But maybe some of you will admit to be Book-Geek-List-Makers and tell me how you manage your lists.